Monday, September 2, 2013

Vegan Sausage in Edible Casing!

Tonight's Mofo post is a special sneak peek at a product that's not even on the market yet!

The folks at Match Meat, the new love of my plant meat-loving life, are working on vegan Italian sausages in edible casing. When they sent me some samples of their other faux meat products a few weeks back, they included a package of these sausages for me to test out and see how they hold up to cooking. Today, I put that to the test at my friend Andy's house, where we fired up the grill for what will likely be the final time this season (sigh).

Here they are, lookin' all eerily like real pork sausage. I'm not sure what the casing is made from since these are testers. But it's a very thin casing that almost dissolves in your mouth when you bite into it.

First, we laid foil down over the grill grates and sprayed it with non-stick cooking spray. Then we grilled these for about 3 minutes or so on all sides. It didn't take long at all before the outer casing was crispy. Just for funsies, I google-imaged "sausage in casing cooked on grill" (not for the faint of heart, mind you), and the pictures of grilled casings on pork sausage look almost just like this!

Then we tucked them into whole wheat buns. I topped mine with relish and mustard and served alongside Kettle's new Maple Bacon Chips (OMG, have y'all had these????? Vegan bacon chips! OMG!).

The verdict? My friend Greg and I both agreed that these were some the most authentic vegan sausages we've had. I figured they would be since Match hasn't let me down yet. I loved how the casing got crispy but not burnt. On the inside, the sausages had a very similar texture to meat sausage, and they seemed to be spiced with fennel and other sausage-y flavors.

When Greg took his first bite, he said, "This is really good. But it's almost too good, like almost too realistic." But then he scarfed down the whole thing and went for seconds. "Too realistic" is a good thing in my book. I didn't stop eating meat because I didn't like the taste and texture. I stopped eating meat because I believe eating animals is morally wrong. But if plants can taste and look like meat, count me in.

Because these are very much a test item, I can't tell you when to expect them on shelves. But hopefully soon! I want more. By the way, if you don't have Match in your area (we don't here in Memphis), they're available all over the vegan web.

How cool that you got to try this product! Any idea what the casing is made out of? I'm not a huge fan of the texture of sausage and hotdog and casings and whatnot but this product will definitely be a big deal for the vegan community!